his
heart.

By his grey, haggard face he knew that the same horror and fear had gone
deep into his friend's soul. There came to him the sudden thought that
Cameron, too, must meet his fellow officers, and must endure their
searching chaff, and that he would reveal himself to his undoing; for
no man can ever live down in his battalion the whisper that he is
a "quitter." That very night Cameron would be forced to lead up his
platoon into the front line, and must lead them step by step over that
same Vlammertinghe road, where the transports were nightly shelled. In
the presence of any danger soever, he must not falter. When the shells
would begin to fall, he knew well how the eyes of his men would turn to
their leader and search his very soul to see of what quality he was.
Far better a man should die than falter. He had not failed to notice the
startled look in Cameron's eyes when Hobbs blurted out his news. Some
way must be found for the bracing up of the nerve, the steadying of the
courage of his friend.

"Come in with me, Cameron," he said, standing at the door of his hut.
"I'm dead beat and so are you. We'll have coffee and some grub, and then
sleep for a couple of hours until reveille."

Cameron hesitated. The thing he most longed for at that moment was to be
alone.

"Come on!" insisted Barry. "Hobbs will have a fire going, and hot coffee
in ten minutes. Come on, old chap. I want you to."

He threw his arm around Cameron's shoulder and dragged him in. The boy
dropped onto Barry's cot, and, as he was, boots and coat on, was asleep
before the coffee was ready. His boyish face, with its haggard look,
struck pity to Barry's heart, and recalled his father's words, "These
boys need their mothers." If ever a lad needed his mother, it was young
Cameron, and just in that hour.

He woke the boy up, gave him his coffee, had Hobbs remove his boots,
made him undress and covered him up in his blankets. Then, taking his
own coffee, he lay down on Hobbs' bed.

"Harry," he said, "give us every minute of sleep you can. Wake us just
one-half hour before reveille with coffee and everything else good you
can rustle, and, Harry, waken me before Mr. Cameron."

When he lay down to sleep he made an amazing discovery--that his own
horror and fear and self-distrust had entirely passed away. He felt
himself quite prepared to "carry on." How had this thing come to pass?
His physical recuperation by means of coffee and food? This doubtle